Hey friend! Have fun exploring Q&A, but in order to ask your own
questions, comment, or give thumbs up, you need to be logged in to your
Moz Pro account.
You can also earn access by receiving 500
MozPoints
from participating in YouMoz and the Moz Blog!

3 Responses

In this instance I would create a Custom 404 page that says something like "We are sorry, this product is no longer available. Here are some helpful links to continue searching our site..."

You could also go the route that eBay uses, although it might prove to be a content management nightmare. eBay leaves up closed auctions for a really long time, but adds the message "This auction has ended."

For classified ads, I wouldn't 301 because, depending on what the item is, it could end up being misleading.

I agree with Dana on the Custom 404 for classifieds. A 301 could confuse people and increase bounce rate since you're not serving them what they thought they were getting. Whereas a 404 makes perfect sense given the transitory nature of a classified ad. Just make sure to let people know the product/ad/listing is no longer available and give them helpful links.

Hey friend! Have fun exploring Q&A, but in order to ask your own
questions, comment, or give thumbs up, you need to be logged in to your
Moz Pro account.
You can also earn access by receiving 500
MozPoints
from participating in YouMoz and the Moz Blog!
Learn more.